Gather all your friends – the Friendship Festival has returned! Valentina HeartSong is back in the Shopping District with your favorite February items. If you search the Spiral’s waters, you’ll also find a familiar friendship mystery fish lurking below. Also, be sure to join in on all the fun with the Friendship Festival Poetry Contest lasting through the month. As we like to do, winners of this contest will be announced on February’s KI Live! Details of the contest are below.
This past January we had a lot of fun meeting new players at PAX South in nearby San Antonio, TX. If you couldn’t make it to the show, we’d love to see you at PAX South 2021! Right after the event we also had the first KI Live of 2020 where we revisited the Pet Derby and had Pet Derby Expert, Vanessa Mythdust, show us how it’s done.
Let’s take a quick look back on some recent activities that occurred across the Spiral:
JAN 02: New Druid’s Hoard Pack
JAN 09: New Litter Critter pet
JAN 10: 2019 Winter Wonderland Artwork Contest winners
JAN 13: Special Beastmoon Hunt on Test Realm
JAN 14: KingsIsle’s fancy new event banners arrived at the office
JAN 15: PAX South KingsIsle office tour and event attendance
JAN 21: Ice Deckathalon
JAN 22: National Squirrel Appreciation Day Ratatoskr Wallpaper
Keep updated daily on the latest news for next month on Twitter and Facebook, including special announcements from community fansites! Read on for more fun happenings with the community and their Spiral activities.
While our games are filled with rich and detailed storylines, there is so much more to tell from the viewpoint of a player. We want you to write a poem about one of your memorable experiences in either Wizard101 or Pirate101. You can refer to any pets, mounts, items, and of course friends you’ve met along the way to add personal flare to your poem.
We’ll select 10 qualified entries to win the new ‘Hearts’ teleport effect in Wizard101 and 10K Crowns each! A couple of the entries will also be read during February’s KI Live. We can’t wait to see what unique and creative poetry you come up with!
Read more about the contest, as well as the Friendship Festival, and then start writing your entry today!
ARTWORK CONTEST WINNERS
Thanks participants for your amazing entries for both Wizard101 and Pirate101 themes! We gazed in awe at each entry's unique design. The talent that our community possesses is truly inspiring. From caricatures to beautiful landscapes drawn via pencil, crayon, paint, and various digital methods, the uniqueness of each truly deserves its own spotlight.
Since we only had so many entry slots, if your entry is not mentioned as a winner below, please feel free to share it on social media. Your entry may still make it into a future newsletter, or perhaps another artwork contest later in 2020!
A new year brings new livestreaming fun! Our first KI Live of 2020 is now on YouTube:
Jeff’s Doodles
Our Principal Artist, Jeff Toney, was also on the show doodling requests from the community! Here is what he drew in just the hour he was on the show:
If you are interested in having Jeff back on the show to draw more for the community, please give him a shout-out on social media and include @Wizard101 in the tweet or post!
NEW BEASTMOON HUNT BEASTFORMS
This livestream was a special breed with us jumping on Test Realm and showing off some of the new Beastforms for the Beastmoon Hunt. Now on YouTube, watch as Leah Ruben, Ben Durbin, and Artie Rogers walk you through the latest changes!
COMMUNITY CHAT WITH CHERYL & GARY
Community member TheArtOfWarlord had an extended chat with two of KingsIsle's leading software engineers, Cheryl Starcher and Gary Smith, on how they were involved in creating Wizard101!
Have a listen to this latest in-depth developer interview:
After listening in, head on over to Final Bastion - they interviewed Tony Gaddis, discussing his career as a KingsIsle animator!
A tip submitted to KI Live comes from community member Nordic Champion:
“If you need gold for the deckathalon, don't forget to sell any fish in your basket that you don't need! There is usually a spiral showcase the week before the deckathalon kicks off, so use that week to fish and earn points toward your scroll while doing so! Then you can sell the fish you catch for gold during the deckathalon! Now you have enough to buy more treasure cards whoo hoo!!” - Nordic Champion
ADAM ROUSH, CONCEPT ARTIST - 2020 ART
Here are some of Adam’s recent works posted to his @AdamRoush2 Twitter account. Many of these items can be found in the Druid’s Hoard Pack. Follow his page for more amazing artwork in the future!
Druid Hoard Pack Sickle and Shield:
Druid Hoard Pack Badger Mounts:
Druid Hoard Pack Sproutlings:
Ratatoskr Wallpaper:
NEW KINGSISLE EVENT BANNERS
To spice up our event presence at shows and community events, we printed these three fine banners to show off our company and games!
PAX SOUTH INSTAGRAM WINNERS
We knew that only a few community members would be at PAX South, so we wanted to ensure as many others were still able to participate in some way. We thus decided to throw a fun giveaway up on our new Instagram channel.
Congrats to the following Instagram winners!
@eclipsefox
@kristinemarie0913
@johnyergermua
@mattcookchs
@me_is_jamesss
@peachpiepaige
@purplestorm13
@sea_wiz_101
Follow our Instagram page to see the latest photos from the event. Thanks to all community members who were able to attend, and to all those who participate in our social activities online!
macOS UPDATE WARNING REMINDER
Apple has released its macOS Catalina update. A reminder that if you upgrade to Catalina, you will not be able to play Wizard101 or Pirate101!
We are continuing to work with our partners on making both games Catalina compatible. To ensure your game access is not interrupted, please wait to install Catalina until we announce full support for the OS.
Thanks for your patience as we work on this updated functionality. We will notify you as soon as support for Catalina becomes available!
ZONE OF THE MONTH - CHRONOVERGE
The traditional and ever popular Zone of the Month continues with a discounted offer! Moving beyond to the miraculous world of Mirage, this month we’re featuring the Chronoverge. Access to this area usually requires 1995 Crowns, but because this is our zone of the month, we’ve discounted this area to 1596 Crowns until March 1st!
Sam Johnson, KingsIsle’s Lead Creative Designer, and Mike Sears, Creative Designer, have been quite pleased with the community’s reactions to the Zone of the Month segments. They would like to know what you think of this latest one! Post a comment on social media, in the official forums, or contact us directly and let them know where you would like the Zone of the Month to be taken next!
Name: Chronoverge (Mirage)
Location: The Chronoverge overlooks the vast Rubal Wastes of Mirage.
Description:
What the Chronoverge lacks in size, it makes up for in importance. It is here where the ancient order of Chronomancers read the Chronoshards and perform other Chronomancer duties related to curating the mystical Sands of Time.
Who’s That Boss?
The Chronoverge directs the Wizard to the Chapter Hall where they confront the Chronomancers who’ve been infiltrated by the dreaded Cabal. The Chronoverge also leads to the final boss fight in Mirage with Grandfather Spider in the Sands of Time.
Behind the Dev Process:
From its inception, the Devs knew they wanted Mirage to feature Time as a plot point. Connecting the desert landscape with the iconography of sand in an hourglass and thus the idea of the “Sands of Time” was one of the first story elements that we committed to, which formed the foundation of the entire Mirage story. The Chronoverge zone came about because we knew we were going to need a zone worthy of the job the Chronomancers do for all life in the Spiral, though it was one of the last zones that was concepted out by the Art team. Being created later in the dev process helped the zone benefit from the Artists having a good feel for the aesthetic of Mirage, which is evidenced in the scenic overlook at the start of the zone. Had the Artists not been familiar with Mirage, they might not have thought to utilize the aspect of the canyons as an aesthetic, and they certainly wouldn’t have been able to portray the world like they did if it hadn’t already been built.
FAN SCREENSHOT SPOTLIGHT
This screenshot is from Autumn Moonflower, taken during her frosty Polaris adventures!
FAN ART SPOTLIGHT
For this month’s fan art spotlight, we are showcasing a drawing by Runaway Thermaturge @rthaumaturge! Here is one of the drawings from his second batch for the War AU, featuring Death, Myth, Life, and Balance schools.
We would love to see more screenshots and art from the community for next month’s newsletter. Do you have something amazing to share? Send it to us in an email to community@Wizard101.com! We’re always interested in showing off more fan art, gameplay guides, and other content.
COMMUNITY NEWS
Community art by: Swordroll
Keep updated on what’s happening in the community right here in our Community News section! For every newsletter, we receive direct from the community links to new gameplay guides, exciting upcoming contests, and much more. Thanks to the following fansites and other community leaders for their contributions this month!
Blaze Lifehammer – New Pack for 2020! Druid’s Hoard Pack Opening
Legends of the Spiral - New Druid's Hoard Pack!
Ravenwood Academy – New Druid’s Hoard Pack
Swordroll – Wizard101 Druid’s Hoard Pack Review
Final Bastion
Frost interviewed Tony Gaddis, discussing his career as a KI animator.
Eric did a lot of work on the Beastmoon Hunt this month. He continued his Beastform Guides and also discussed the changes added in the week-long Beastmoon Hunt centered Test Realm.
What if spellwrighting included mutated spells, allowing you to better use secondary school attack spells? Check out Ravino's take on Storm Spellwrighting Mutations and keep your eyes peeled for more entries in this series.
Cody featured some underutilized Wizard101 tricks in a continuation of his Lifehacks series.
The Deckathalon premiered its endurance mode recently! Check out Cody's review of this new Deckathalon format, where he discusses his experiences and provides some helpful tips for future runners.
Legends of the Spiral
The LotS crew welcomes New Additions to the Team!
Chinese New Year is here! Check out the Year of the Rat Card Maker Contest.
Ravenwood Academy
Ravenwood Academy pieces together the lore and fills in their best theory about what really happened in the forgotten lore of Dragonspyre.
Revisit all the amazing things that 2019 brought the Spiral with 2019: A Spiral review.
Congrats to the Winners of the New Years Resolution Contest!
A review of Christmas in the Spiral.
The unaffiliated-with-KingsIsle “Community Newsletter” had a great selection of Wizard101 links this month. NOTE: Be sure to follow their Twitter page for more information. To subscribe to their newsletter, send a message to them over Twitter inquiring to be added or email them at community.newsletter.101@gmail.com. You can unsubscribe at any time by sending them an email with the phrase “UNSUB”.
FOLLOW WIZARD101
Question for our readers - is there a section we should add? Tweet your suggestion to @Wizard101 and we’ll select the top idea we can implement to win 5,000 Crowns!
Be sure to follow the game and its community on social media!
If you didn’t yet read our article on online safety, please take a moment to stop by our KingsIsle Blog and read the post titled Account Security Best Practices. There’s important information in the article to manage and protect your entire family’s accounts.
